School options since SDSU admission may not be in the cards?

One thing that might sweeten the deal at some of the OOS-alternative schools that are now in the running, is the National Student Exchange, which allows students to spend a semester or a full year at a campus in another part of the country, for their regular price at their home campus. NSE schools that have been mentioned include New Mexico State, U of Arizona, Hawaii-Manoa, and UNLV. Campuses that could be destinations, in addition to the above, include Cal Poly (for a second chance at close-to-home) and various others that might be too far away for all 4 years but not for a change of scene: Iowa State, UMN-Twin Cities, and Arizona particularly stand out for Aero, and there are more options on the list National Student Exchange - Campuses / Location

Hope the scramble to line up a good plan is going well!

The UofU has a very strong mech engineering program and their new building is :fire: :star_struck: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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@Bgrateful1 I am catching up on threads and wanted to check on your kiddo’s college journey. I am always impressed by how the CC community dives in to help, and I am hopeful this one ended well for you two.

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You didn’t take up spots, they accept way more than they expect to enroll.

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Actually, the college probably assumes that the admit takes up a fractional spot based on the applicant’s likelihood of yielding. For example, a very ā€œoverqualifiedā€ admit may be estimated as having a 1% chance of yielding, so will be assumed to take up 0.01 of a spot, while a barely-admitted admit may be estimated as having a 50% chance of yielding, so will be assumed to take up 0.50 of a spot. Of course, as admits matriculate or decline, they are converted into taking up 1 or 0 spots.

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I think this has changed a lot in recent years. It used to be that only kids from wealthy backgrounds could pay for SAT prep, but now with free resources like Khan Academy etc. you can do a ton of rigorous, targeted practice and preparation without paying anything at all.

It takes a lot of work, but the option is there regardless of how much money someone has. And at my daughter’s Title I public high school, the district paid for every kid to take the PSAT every year to prepare, as well.

I don’t know if the SAT is a great predictor of how well kids do in college, but I’d say getting rid of it made things less fair, if anything. At least everyone takes the same test, unlike the subjectivity of a grade. Look at the grade inflation at private schools. And as someone above mentioned, now that people routinely hire people (or use ChatGPT) to write their essays, what’s left?

I don’t know the answer, but like pashtun I wouldn’t be surprised if the SAT or some other standardized test comes back so there’s a (sort of?) level way to measure applicants.

Or maybe they’ll do a lottery like you suggest. That would surprise me more than the SAT coming back, but a lot of things about the college application process have surprised me!

Thanks for checking back. My son and his friends’ band played Life is a Highway at their graduation and we’re miles from April chaos now. Thanks to all the wonderful folks here and all the great suggestions we backfilled those 0 for 6 UCs and highly impacted CSUs with Mech E admits to U of Utah, UColo CS, UNR, NMSU (Aero), Chico State, and Sac State. It greatly lifted his mood and gave us good plans. Then UC Merced said Yes. But ultimately it was my son that succeeded with a hard earned appeal to get accepted to Cal Poly Pomona ā€œChoiceā€ in May to Manufacturing Engineering. He’ll be working even harder to try to gain a change of major to Aero or Mech E so he has a tough road ahead. He loves aerospace so I think he will get there. We’re glad for this website and folks like you and GumbyMom for the opportunities that we’d perhaps have never found. I’m sure I’ll be back next year for my daughter. Then one more the year after that. All mile markers on Life’s Scenic Highway. Go CPP Broncos!

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As an aside, my son works for an aero company in a manufacturing engineering leadership development program.

And he’ll have opportunities as a former aero engineer if he wants. He was a MechE.

So your son has potential to get where he wants.

Congrats to him and best of luck.